


a wasteland where should lie paradise

by Reishiin



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Canon, Hanahaki Disease, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 00:31:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9941207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: Kaito’s life is measured in the people who anchor its years, and the flowers have changed again.(Kaito + Ryouga /hanahaki-byou/ 'it's not like we'd be best friends from the start')





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [[中文翻译]A Wasteland Where Should Lie Paradise](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10548044) by [LunariaElongata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunariaElongata/pseuds/LunariaElongata)



> ETA 16/06/17: (This version of hanahakibyou is neither the [original JP ver](http://dic.pixiv.net/a/%E8%8A%B1%E5%90%90%E3%81%8D%E7%97%85) of the illness, nor the [variant in common use in EN-language fandom](http://shiftseveny.tumblr.com/post/148698685633). I am sorry for having taken liberties. Thank you [LunariaElongata](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LunariaElongata) for pointing this out!
> 
> Title is a riff off [this tag](http://stierhai.tumblr.com/tagged/writing:%20a%20garden%20where%20should%20lie%20paradise) by tumblr user stier/hai
> 
> [Art of the ending](http://xionchan.tumblr.com/post/157758795904) by tumblr user xion/chan (thank you so much ;_;)
> 
> rhododendron: wariness, caution  
> hydrangea: sincerity, gratitude, (Japanese) apology  
> anemone: luck, protection, well-wishes  
> lupine: the inner strength to recover from trauma, a positive outlook leading to new opportunities  
> hyacinth: sorrow for a wrong committed, regret, a request for forgiveness

 

 

 

 

11:38 Monday morning; Chris is in his study, busy with something else. Kaito steps away from his instruments, grabs a tissue from the box on the shelf and coughs into it. When he pulls it away he examines the contents: an intact flower, the petals gently furled, white at the center and violet at the edges.

A mild inconvenience. Kaito shreds it with his fingers and tosses it into the trashcan.

 

* * *

 

Kaito learned to recognize many kinds of flowers in the forest by his old house, when Haruto would run off to catch butterflies, and Kaito stayed behind and watched him from the glade where flowers of all kinds grew in abundance. Years later he would learn their names off the descriptive plaques in Heartland’s central parks, when Droite pointed them out on the way back from training.

The first time Kaito chokes on nothing and spits what look like shreds of purple paper into the lab sink, he stares into the basin for half a minute, and then fetches the optical microscope and a mounting slide. Plant matter of some sort. He runs his blood work again. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Incubation, infection, transmission. Kaito considers the past days: the Numbers holder at Heartland Mall, Tsukumo Yuuma at the crossroads by the plaza, Heartland’s ultimatum by Haruto’s bed. Kamishiro Ryouga, who fought Orbital 7 and then lied about the Numbers to keep Kaito from the Emperor’s Key.

 _Something so important one would give their life and soul to protect it_ , Kaito thinks, and coughs another few flower fragments into his hands.

Over the next several days he dries and collects petals, sepals, anthers, stigmas, filaments; presses them dry, pins them to paper like pieces of a puzzle until he has collected enough to identify the plant. Rhododendron: a hundred grams ingested would kill a child.

After that Kaito empties his stomach into the kitchen sink three times a day and coughs up flower pieces until his throat is raw before he goes out to hunt.

 

* * *

  

A mild inconvenience.

At the WDC finals Kamishiro Ryouga confronts Thomas on the magma field, and Kaito chases Chris down and duels him under the stadium’s artificial sky. They don’t meet face to face again until Heartland Tower collapses with Kaito under it, and Kamishiro Ryouga looks with wariness at the man who would have killed him with no compunction —who put him in the hospital for a week as it were – and shifts aside the rubble so Kotori can pull Kaito from underneath it.

“We're not done here,” he says, when Kaito is on his feet again, and Kaito has to choke back the obstruction that rises in his throat. He’ll pay later for swallowing the flowers but Kamishiro Ryouga is not someone he will show weakness to.

“Upset that I didn't say thank you? Unfortunately it's not a word I-"

That guy's face twists in rage but he tells Kaito the truth: that it's because of Tsukumo Yuuma he needs to know.

(Kaito considers Haruto, and thinks that maybe he and that guy do have something in common after all.)

Later, that guy leaves Kaito Hyper-Ancient Shark Megalodon when he knows full well he might die because of it.

Kaito is beginning to see a pattern.

Kaito also does not let down people when they have entrusted something important to him.

When they have parted ways and Yuuma and Ryouga have gone from sight, Kaito buckles to his knees and empties the contents of his throat among the remains of Heartland Tower’s eastern wall. The flowers unfurl in the rubble, small and white.

 

* * *

  

Hydrangea are smaller, less irritating, easier to swallow, and not poisonous.

Kaito thinks this development is fine.

 

* * *

  

Heartland Medical Center is deserted in the early afternoon. Kaito is just hitting the elevator door close button when somebody sticks a hand between the sliding doors and dashes in. "Thank—"

"You," Kaito says.

"— you," Ryouga replies. He looks constipated.

Kamishiro Rio's hospital ward is down the hall from Haruto's.

"How long?" Kaito asks.

"A year," Ryouga replies; sets down the flowers he's carrying and changes them with the ones in the vase with mechanical efficiency. Aside from the length of Rio's hair and the softer line of her jaw, the family resemblance is striking. The TV overhead is set to the dueling channel, the volume on mute.

As they walk down the hall Kaito excuses himself to the bathroom and spits white shreds into the blue paper lining of the wastebasket.

When they leave the building they nod in farewell, and then end up walking in the same direction anyway all the way to the parking lot. Ryouga picks up his bike; Kaito picks up Orbital. They go their separate ways.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris ferrets Kaito out and asks him for his help investigating phenomena around Heartland City, and Kaito agrees. They don't talk about Byron Arclight. Chris seems well. It’s like the way it was before.

At dinner something finds its way into the back of Kaito’s throat; he chokes, coughs, swallows the offending flower so Chris doesn’t see. When Kaito pulls the napkin from his mouth Chris says, “You’ve been ill lately.”

Kaito crumples the linen square in his hands and drops it back in his lap. “I’m fine.”

 

* * *

 

 

Yuuma and Ryouga, dueling in the rain on the roof of Heartland Medical.

Kaito’s life is measured in the people who anchor its years. Haruto was first, caramel and hot chocolate and summer days when butterflies soared on powdered wings into clear skies. Chris, who taught him to duel and gave him a home; Droite, who trained and fought by his side in Heartland’s camp. Tsukumo Yuuma, who saved Haruto’s life and then Kaito’s own, and—

—and Kamishiro Ryouga, whose contact details are still saved in Kaito's D-Gazer under 'that guy', who sends Kaito links to NASA tweets and duels him without AR-vision in the waiting area outside the third-floor wards at Heartland Medical, who still does not call him friend.

The flowers have changed again: common anemones, sepals thick and smooth like velvet, violet at their center, white at their edges. They come in pieces, not whole flowers. Morning and evening Kaito clears them from his windpipe and goes about business as usual.

It is fine like this. And even if it is not, it has to be.

 

* * *

 

Walking down the street of Sparta City, Kaito turns aside to cough a flower into his hand. He turns back to see Droite watching him. He has never been able to keep anything a secret from her.

Later over tea at an open-air corner cafe, Droite explains that four years ago there was an outbreak of the hanahaki-byou at her and Gauche’s orphanage. They were all young, Droite says, and emotions run high in such a place. Kaito, who had lived at Heartland Tower for the duration of his stint at Heartland’s training program, had had no idea.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m probably even the one who gave it to you and it just never came up until this time. You were with me and Gauche all the time and you always seemed fine, so we thought—maybe you were immune.” Then, more quietly, “It always seemed like there was no room in your heart for anything like that.”

Kaito asks, “How did you live?”

“It's actually rare that the illness progresses to the final stage. My feelings just were not strong enough."

Kaito looks at her and thinks: that's not true.

"Then I’ll be fine,” he says. “The only things important to me are Haruto and Galaxy-Eyes.” At any rate, he will not live long enough for the flowers to kill him.

Droite nods, and they pay for their drinks and go their separate ways.

 

* * *

  

Some afternoons Kaito will go to the observation deck in Heartland Park and look at the skyline of the city against the setting sun. On Thursdays, he will find Ryouga already there, and they duel until the sunlight runs out and they can't read their cards any more.

Kaito has no idea what Ryouga gets out of it, but since he doesn't stop coming, there is the sense that that guy needs this as much as he does.

Ryouga flips a trap. "You're distracted." He's not wrong. "Is it about what Jinlon said?"

"Yes." Kaito studies the board, then touches his deck. He can see where this match is headed.

Ryouga gathers his own cards and folds up the mat, then walks over to where Kaito is standing by the rail. "What are you going to do?"

"Investigate," Kaito replies.

Ryouga nods.

(Ordinarily, they don't discuss the future. Sometimes, the way Ryouga talks, it's like there isn't one.

_—I'm going to hell anyway._

Kaito doesn't question it. He has held Ryouga's soul in his hands, and sinners know their own.)

Something settles at the back of Kaito's tongue and he absently shreds it with his teeth and swallows it. The sky is clear today, the sunset orange and pink and red, and the air cool with the last vestiges of summer. At Kaito's side Ryouga shifts his weight, and their sleeves brush. Kaito can't breathe, but he doesn't move. This—

This is fine.

 

* * *

 

Chris tells Kaito they need an unobstructed view of the sky in order to carry out their observations, and relocates their makeshift laboratory to a secluded building in the Northern European high-latitude flatlands.

 _i met iv today_ , black letters against white on Kaito’s D-Pad screen. _i think i found sth impt_

_What is it?_

A pause. Kaito coughs up an unidentifiable plant part and launches the wadded-up tissue at the basket across the room. It is always worse when he is talking to Ryouga directly, but he doesn't stop writing.

 _don’t know yet,_ comes the reply. Then, _can you see the stars where you are?_

Outside Kaito’s window the aurora borealis are bright tonight. Kaito snaps a photo and uploads it on social media so Ryouga can see. They duel three times: one win, one loss, one draw. Kaito falls asleep with the D-Pad in his hands, and wakes to his pillow covered in lupine.

 

* * *

  

Nightfall, the day Yuuma left for Astral World.

Kaito jerks awake. Silent room, dark ceiling, half-moon throwing stripes of light through the window blinds. 3:17 a.m. His throat burns, there are tears streaming from his eyes.

He stumbles to the bathroom and braces himself against the counter, swipes his hair out of his face as he empties the contents of his stomach into the sink. The flowers lodge painfully in the back of his throat and he has to cough to get them out. Something tears through his chest and he fumbles with the tap, runs his hands under the gradually warming water until the scalding sensation is louder than the pressure against the inside of his ribcage; until he can distance, recognize, categorize it as grief.

He opens his eyes, and immediately his head hurts from the bright light overhead. The white porcelain of the basin is littered with spots of blood and small thin crumpled petals still attached to their stems.

(—Nothing has changed, so, why...)

Kaito cleans out the sink, stumbles to the kitchen to get water for his hurting throat, then goes back to his room to sleep.

The next morning he examines the new flowers more closely, and something clicks. It is like getting hit by a train.

These flowers—are not _his_ feelings.

He pulls out his D-Pad and texts Ryouga. There is no reply.

 

* * *

 

 

At the crossroads outside Heartland Tower. That guy — Nasch — stands with the Barians facing them, and as their eyes meet Kaito knows that guy has figured out the truth of that thing he said he found.

Kaito does not like it at all. But he will respect it, because he already knows Ryouga's feelings.

He looks from Nasch to Yuuma's stricken face, feels something rise in the back of his throat and doesn't bother to stop it. He spits three whole stalks of hyacinth onto the ground, then scrubs at his mouth with the back of his hand and turns to Yuuma. Doesn't know if Nasch is looking, doesn't care. "That guy, he's not coming back," Kaito says, and hopes Yuuma understands.

 

 

 


End file.
